The 2019 off-season is shaping up to be the most exciting since LeBron, Wade and Bosh formed the "Big Three" in Miami back in 2010. That model of building a "superteam" ushered in a new era in the NBA and has been the blueprint for success ever since.

LeBron James: Will he add another chapter to his legacy or see out his NBA days in Cleveland?

Once again LeBron James will be the centerpiece of free agency this time around. The future Hall of Famer could be set for "The Decision 2.0" in July if the Cavs don't improve significantly.

Since winning the 2016 finals, they have been beaten 4-1 in the 2017 finals by the Warriors, have crashed out in the conference semi finals against the Wizards and are currently only holding the fifth seed this season, six games behind emerging powerhouse Philadelphia.

The era of dominance over the eastern conference seems to be over for LeBron. No longer is the team that he leads guaranteed to be finals bound. Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Toronto and Washington are seriously challenging for the eastern at the moment.

The Sixers made the finals in 2018, eventually falling to the Russell Westbrook-led Thunder in six games. They have continued that form this year and find themselves leading the eastern conference with the third-best record in the entire league.

An impressive core of Ben Simmons, John Wall and Joel Embiid, with a supporting cast made up of Robert Covington, Dario Saric, Dwyane Wade and JJ Redick makes them heavy favourites to return to the finals this season.

The likes of Toronto and Washington are both currently underperforming, but could be dangerous to their rivals if they make the playoffs. The Raptors could be an especially dangerous team with veterans DeMar DeRozan, Kyle Lowry, Serge Ibaka and Jonas Valanciunas capable of challenging anyone when they're at their best.

Orlando seem to be figuring things out behind the play of Aaron Gordon, Evan Fournier and Nikola Vucevic. Around them are Elfrid Payton, Bismack Biyombo, Mario Hezonja, Jonathan Isaac, Brandon McCoy, Justin Jackson and Isaiah Hartenstein.

Then there are a couple of teams looking to be powerful in a couple of years. Louisville are building around young trio Luka Doncic, Lonzo Ball and Noah Vonleh.

Indiana has an incredibly talented, but young roster with Victor Oladipo, Jeff Teague, Jaylen Brown, Markelle Fultz, Michael Porter Jr, Myles Turner, Wendell Carter, Grayson Allen and a likely top five pick in the 2019 draft to come.

At this stage, only a handful of teams have the potential cap space to actually sign LeBron outright:- Chicago (IF they decide not to re-sign Cameron Payne)- Boston (IF they decide not to re-sign Malcolm Brogdon and hoping Al Horford declines his $30 million player option)- Miami (IF Kevin Love, Hassan Whiteside and Tyler Johnson decline their player options and/or they decide not to re-sign Justise Winslow)- Dallas (IF Harrison Barnes declines his $25 million player option)- Phoenix (IF they decide not to re-sign Andre Iguodala)- Minnesota (IF Jimmy Butler and Goran Dragic both decline their $19 million player options)

But clearly if a player of LeBron's calibre is available and signals that he wants to join your team, you will find ways to open up the necessary room to sign him.

It's likely that whatever LeBron decides to do, it will have a domino effect on the rest of the free agency period. Players and teams will be waiting to see what happens before committing to deals themselves.

Russell Westbrook: Are the bright lights of Los Angeles enough to tear him away from his perfect situation in OKC?

The two-time reigning MVP and 2018 finals MVP has surprised a lot of people by failing to re-commit to the Thunder yet. Sam Presti and company don't seem to be panicking though.

In the past two seasons Westbrook has flirted with replicating Oscar Robertson's legendary feat of averaging a triple-double over an entire season. In 2016-17 he averaged 28 points, 9.2 rebounds and 11 assists per game, then he managed 25 points, 12 rebounds and 9.6 assists per game in 2017-18.

But this year he looks set to do it in style. He currently averages 28 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists per game. He leads the league in assists, is third in scoring and rebounding, and is second in steals. It's hard to see him not retaining he MVP title for a third successive season.

Westbrook has made no secret of his love for the city he now calls home and the fans who cheer the team, even when they are arriving back at the airport at 3am after a loss. So it seems unlikely that he is planning on leaving, but rather is just keeping his options open.

You never know how strong the call home to Los Angeles will be strong will be. Will it be strong enough to make him leave a championship-winning team that is built around him?

James Harden: Is the Houston experiment a failure? Will he head elsewhere in search of help?

The future of superstar James Harden in Houston is one of the most intriguing aspects of the upcoming off-season.

With the Rockets currently sitting several games out of the playoff race, Harden is allegedly growing tired of his situation in Texas. Reports have claimed that he is frustrated with the quality of the team that has been built around him since he arrived from Oklahoma City in 2012.

Houston general manager Daryl Morey has failed to secure a second all-star talent to play alongside Harden. And with overpaid role players like Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon clogging up their salary cap, it's highly unlikely that the Rockets will be able to sign anyone in July.

Perhaps the biggest failure of the team has been them getting swept by Portland and Phoenix in the first round of the playoffs in the past two seasons. And if things keep going as they are right now, they may not even make it to that stage this time around.

The beard has given no indication of his future plans yet, apart from the obvious lack of signing an extension. The Rockets reportedly have an offer on the table with his agent, but he wishes to wait until the end of the season to assess all of his options.

These days that is rarely a good sign for a team wanting their star player to stay with them. Especially if they do end up missing out on the playoffs.

Klay Thompson: Can the Warriors afford to keep him? And does he even want to stay in the shadow of Curry and Durant?

It's hard to imagine a player contemplating leaving a team that has been viewed by many as the greatest of all time. But that is the situation Klay Thompson may find himself in soon.

Since the "Splash Brothers" era began in earnest in 2012, Thompson has slowly found himself falling down the pecking order in the Warriors' championship crusade. The arrival of Kevin Durant effectively demoted the sharpshooting wing to third option on offense.

Meanwhile the emergence of versatile forward Draymond Green into an all-star calibre player and defensive anchor of the team has seen Thompson be relegated to the fourth most important piece in the Warriors' setup by many observers.

All of this leads to the inevitable question: Is Klay happy being a glorified role player whilst the others on his team earn accolades like MVP, Finals MVP and all-star selection? Or will he be content with the two rings that he has already won and leave to forge his own legacy with a team built around him?

The other elephant in the room is the question of whether the Warriors can even afford to keep him with three other all-stars already taking up about $76 million of their cap. Sure, they are owned by billionaire Joe Lacob and have made truckloads of extra revenue from bandwagoners in recent years, but spending most of their cap on only four players isn't healthy.

Klay has been quoted in the past as saying that he would ideally like to remain with the Warriors, but it remains to be seen where his head is at come July.

Nikola Jokic: Denver have the talent, but have they shown enough improvement to convince the big man to stay?

If you had asked any basketball fan a year ago about the odds of Nikola Jokic leaving the Denver Nuggets, they probably would have said 0%. But a lack of tangible progression by the young team has suddenly raised the very real possibility of him leaving as an unrestricted free agent this summer.

Everything seems to be in place for Denver to become a successful team in the near future, with young prospects like Emmanuel Mudiay, Jamal Murray, Josh Jackson, Gary Harris, Trevon Duval, Skal Labissiere and Mikal Bridges in place around Jokic.

But if James Harden or LeBron James called him and said "Hey, come join me in X city", would he be able to say no? How badly does he want to win a championship?

Not many big men in the league possess his combination of shooting, passing and rebounding ability. It makes him a very highly valued commodity. A lot of teams want to build around an Embiid, Porzingis or Towns type of player in the current NBA climate.

The Nuggets currently hold the equal-second-worst record in the league with Dallas, only behind the Atlanta Hawks. It's been a bitterly disappointing season for the franchise as this was the season that they were supposed to push for a playoff spot. They traded for all-star veteran Paul Millsap over the off-season and drafted Duval and Bridges in the lottery.

Their decision to trade down from the first overall pick seems to have been a massive blunder. Luca Doncic (Pick 1), DeAndre Ayton (Pick 2) and Michael Porter Jr (Pick 3) are all impressing, whilst Trevon Duval has been solid but not spectacular. And the 2019 first rounder that they received from Louisville in that deal is top three protected and currently only worth the sixth pick.

Perhaps they will package up some assets to land a veteran player to join Jokic and Millsap in the hopes of making a late season playoff push. That is, if they haven't already left it too late.

It could be a particularly hard off-season for Denver if Jokic does leave. Their own first round pick is currently in the top three, but is controlled by Portland and has no protections on it.

The Veterans: Potential ring chasers?

There will be a solid class of veterans in their thirties who will be available as unrestricted free agents. A group of players who will see their window of opportunity to win an NBA championship closing quickly and could sacrifice some status and money in order to get a shot at securing the ultimate prize.

The standout will clearly be Memphis big man Marc Gasol. Many people expected him to quietly finish up his career with the Grizzlies, but a recent announcement that they plan on trading him before the deadline has thrown his future up in the air.

Pau Gasol, Dirk Nowitzki, Zach Randolph and Chris Bosh are also set to be free agents as well if they decide to play on next season. There has been talk that each of them could retire, the first three because of age and the latter because of medical issues.

Andre Iguodala, Dwight Howard, Marcin Gortat, Shaun Livingston, Taj Gibson, Jeff Green, George Hill, Wesley Matthews and Patrick Beverley are the pick of the other veterans available. No doubt title chasing teams will be in contact with them in July.

Restricted Free Agents: Will any shake loose?

Every year the list of restricted free agents seems to generate the most excitement amongst fans, with highly rated prospects coming to the end of their rookie contracts. But very few ever actually end up leaving the team that drafted them into the league.

The latest bunch includes Karl-Anthony Towns, Kristaps Porzingis, D'Angelo Russell, Devin Booker, Emmanuel Mudiay, Justise Winslow, Malcolm Brogdon and Kelly Oubre Jr. All of them have so far failed to reach an agreement with their teams for an extension.

Of that list, Oubre is probably the most likely to end up on another team because the Wizards have a logjam at the small forward position. They have Otto Porter Jr and Bojan Bogdanovic both locked into long-term contracts already.

Towns, Porzingis and Booker in particular are seen as cornerstone players by their teams. They won't be going anywhere.

Hopefully you can land at least one big name. As cool as it is to have an overachieving young core, I find it's always rewarding to land a big free agent in franchise modes. I've often lucked out with the big names getting re-signed before I have a chance to make a pitch at them.

Andrew wrote:Hopefully you can land at least one big name. As cool as it is to have an overachieving young core, I find it's always rewarding to land a big free agent in franchise modes. I've often lucked out with the big names getting re-signed before I have a chance to make a pitch at them.

I did start this game with a plan of building slowly through the draft. But it probably is time to try and speed things up a bit with a big name signing.

I would love to have Westbrook on my team again after all these years. Even though it would make no sense for the in-game story

The participants for the 2019 all-star weekend have been revealed today. As always, who got in and who got left out has caused great debate amongst fans and experts.

The most obvious omission seems to be Warriors star Stephen Curry. But a closer look at the numbers shows that Russell Westbrook, Damian Lillard and Chris Paul are all having far better seasons than the two-time MVP.

Statistically all three of Westbrook (28p/12r/12a), Lillard (29p/9a) and Paul (23p/11a) are having superior seasons to Curry (23p/5r/6a).

Karl-Anthony Towns, Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons will all be competing in their first all-star game, as will surprise selections Reggie Jackson and Kris Dunn.

Familiar faces like LeBron James, Chris Paul, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook will all be there again as well. LeBron will be appearing in his 15th all-star game, which puts him equal third all-time alongside Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan and Shaquille O'Neal.

As small consolation, both Curry and Thompson will be competing in the three point contest against James Harden, Kevin Durant, Evan Fournier and Damian Lillard.

Marquese Chriss will be participating in the dunk contest for the third straight year. He will be hoping to do better than his two last place finishes this time.

With the excitement of the all-star weekend over for another year, the focus of NBA fans turned to the looking trade deadline. There was the usual speculation about which players were going to be traded and who could be working on a mega deal to land a franchise-changing piece.

But in the end, the few days before the deadline passed went by relatively quietly. Apart from the frantic dealing of Magic Johnson and the Los Angeles Lakers.

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The first of three deals completed by the Lakers saw them dump the salaries of Jordan Clarkson and Festus Ezeli to the Utah Jazz in exchange for the expiring contracts of George Hill, Alex Burks and Jeff Withey. Young shooting guard LiAngelo Ball was also sent to the Jazz as part of the deal. Much to the probable dismay of his outspoken father.

Shedding the salaries of Clarkson and Ezeli saves the Lakers $26 million next year and $40 million overall. Their goal was to free up as much cap space for next season as possible so that they can target top tier free agents such as LeBron James, Russell Westbrook, James Harden and Klay Thompson.

By doing this trade Utah commit pretty heavily to a championship push. They upgrade their bench with Clarkson and Ezeli, who are both solid role players. This move may have come too late to save their playoff hopes for this season though as they sit thirteenth in the western conference, eight games behind eighth seeded San Antonio.

They will be expecting to do better next season with stars Gordon Hayward and Rudy Gobert leading the way. A supporting cast of Rodney Hood, Dante Exum, Joe Ingles, Jordan Clarkson and Festus Ezeli should have them at least fighting for a playoff spot.

Another year of NBA basketball will do wonders for the development of youngsters Domantas Sabonis and Miles Bridges as well.

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A day after the Utah trade, the Lakers agreed another deal with the Detroit Pistons which saw them acquire more expiring contracts. They had to send fan favourite Larry Nance Jr to the Pistons in order to dump the huge contract of Luol Deng.

This deal saved the Lakers a further $29 million in cap space for next season.

Detroit take on Deng's contract in order to secure a solid frontcourt partner for Andre Drummond. Larry Nance Jr is known for his high-flying dunking and should be a welcome addition of excitement for fans of the struggling team.

The decision to trade Tobias Harris comes after they handed Stanley Johnson a $62 million extension last month. Clearly they felt that Johnson was the better piece to build around. Although aging, Deng should provide solid backup at small forward.

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To round out their cap clearout, the Lakers completed a deal with Louisville that saw them offload Timofey Mozgov.

This final trade removes a further $17 million from their cap. They now only have Julius Randle and rookie John Petty contracted beyond this season. In total the three trades opened up a massive $74 million in cap room. Clearly Magic Johnson is confident of being able to lure at least one superstar free agent.

LeBron James has been linked with a move to Los Angeles for the past decade, whilst Westbrook, Harden and Klay all have the hometown factor after growing up around the Los Angeles area. It is interesting to note however that the Lakers haven't signed a big name free agent since Shaquille O'Neal in 1996.

Louisville basically do a like-for-like swap of Marcin Gortat for Timofey Mozgov, whilst only adding a further year of salary. The real prize for them is the addition of 2018 ninth overall pick Dzanan Musa. The sharpshooting Bosnian joins fellow young guns Lonzo Ball and Luka Doncic in Louisville. Along with Noah Vonleh, the Lions look to have an exciting future.

This trade was a clever way for the Lions to add another young piece to their roster, as their 2019 first round pick is owned by Denver. It was traded to the Nuggets in the deal to land the 2018 first overall pick and select Luka Doncic. It currently projects to be the eighth overall pick.

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After all the wheeling and dealing by the Lakers, this move by the Cavaliers almost went under the radar. They acquired all-star center Marc Gasol from the Memphis Grizzlies.

Cleveland had to give up Tristan Thompson and send the Grizzlies' 2019 first round pick back to them to get the deal done. With the Cavs appearing to have lost their dominance of the eastern conference and the recent freeing up of cap room by the Lakers, the possibility of LeBron jumping ship to Los Angeles at the end of the season seemed increasingly realistic.

The Cavs felt that they needed to make a significant move in order to both improve their championship chances and also convince LeBron to remain with the team beyond this season. Despite his age, Gasol is a definite upgrade on Thompson at both ends of the floor. He will be especially vital in the playoffs against Joel Embiid and Al Horford.

After acquiring Gasol, Cleveland waived both Kay Felder and Wenyen Gabriel. They then signed veterans Corey Brewer and James Johnson for the remainder of the season to give their bench more experience and depth.

Memphis announced a few weeks ago that they were looking to trade away their franchise centerpiece. After lots of deliberation, their front office finally settled on this deal with Cleveland. Their main priority in this trade was to regain control of their first round pick again. It did have a top five protection on it, but it was projecting between third and seventh.

The Grizzlies are set for a big rebuild through the draft now as the monster contracts they gave to Mike Conley and Chandler Parsons prevent them from doing anything significant in the free agency market.

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Memphis further committed to their rebuild by trading the other long-standing face of their franchise, Zach Randolph. He headed to Brooklyn in exchange for David West and a lottery protected first round pick.

As soon as the Grizzlies traded Gasol they no longer needed 37 year old Randolph. So they got a decent return for him and handed over the starting power forward role to Deyonta Davis. The new-look pairing of Davis and Tristan Thompson is a combined 22 years younger than the Gasol-Randolph partnership.

Memphis now has two first round picks heading into the 2019 draft. Their own looks likely to be a top five selection, whilst the Nets pick is currently projected to be sixteenth overall. It could end up falling in the 18-22 range if Brooklyn improve as expected.

Brooklyn are right on the edge of the race for the playoff seeds with a 27-27 record. Adding Randolph to partner Mason Plumlee could give them the boost that they need to catch Washington and Miami, who are both just a half a game in front of them in the finals two playoff spots currently.

This wasn't a massive gamble for the Nets because the lottery protection on the pick means that if they fail to improve, they will likely end up getting the pick back anyway.

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The final deal of a hectic few days was completed by San Diego, as they acquired center Nikola Vucevic from the Orlando Magic.

Orlando had been looking to offload Vucevic after failing to agree an extension with him. His departure will see Bismack Biyombo promoted to the starting role and Serbian giant Boban Marjanovic fill in the backup role. The Magic also received Jonathan Simmons and a top ten protected first round pick in 2020.

It's an interesting move for a team that has unexpectedly emerged as a real contender in the eastern conference this season. The stellar play of Evan Fournier, Mario Hezonja and Aaron Gordon has seen them rise rapidly to third in the standings in the past month or two. They could be the wildcard in the playoffs.

San Diego look to solve their problem at center by landing the talented Vucevic. Duties had been shared between Marjanovic, veteran Andrew Bogut and youngster Omer Yurtseven for most of the season. It was clearly a weak point of their team and they will be hoping that Vucevic can form a solid partnership with Greg Monroe.

They currently sit in seventh place in the ultra-competitive western conference in only their second season in existence. A veteran core of Greg Monroe, TJ Warren and Norman Powell have been supporting young star Dennis Smith Jr, who is averaging an impressive 22 points, 4 rebounds, 8 assists and 2 steals per game in his sophomore campaign.